Beeman



Aug 30, 1955 C. BEEMAN 2,716,570

REACH EXTENDING IMPLEMENT Filed 0G13. 23. 1950 ATTORN EY United States Patent O REACH EXTENDING IMPLEMENT Carl Beeman, New York, N. Y. Application October 23, 1950, Serial No. 191,635 2 Claims. (Cl. 294-22) This invention relates to implements particularly useful in extending the reach of a sales clerk for lifting articles, such as shoe boxes or the like, to high places on stock racks such as the upper tiers of display shelves in a shoe store and for removing boxes therefrom without use of a ladder. The present implement serves to handle such boxes whether the box is right side up or cover side down or empty or loaded with contents. A reaching implement embodying the present invention also is capable of engaging, holding and disengaging articles such as shallow trays that are analogous in shape to an inverted shoe box cover so as conveniently to place them on and withdraw them from high shelves and hard to reach places.

Shoe boxes typically are elongate and made of fairly stiff cardboard as also is the shallow cover of a shoe box usually having a marginal rim or lip overlapping the top edges of the box. While it formerly has been proposed to support and maneuver an elongate box by means of a pole-carried fitting that provides an upstanding thin flat tongue insertable between the cover lip and the box side while the bottom edge of the box rests on a shelf-like projection of the fitting, such contrivances have not made it possible to hold and maneuver a cover equipped box in up-side-down position which is the customary way of stacking empty shoe boxes on the display shelves of a shoe store so that a sales clerk can distinguish boxes which are empty from boxes which contain shoes.

It is an object of the present invention to equip a reach-extending pole with a fitting for the said purpose in the nature of a fixed claw preferably having no relatively movable parts and which shall be capable of so engaging with the rim of the cover of an inverted box, or any comparable tray-like article having an upstanding side wall with an exposed top edge, that the inverted cover or tray will be supported steadily by the pole-carried fitting for being carried about and maneuvered in a manner to place it on or remove it from overhead shelves. For this purpose tbe box cover or tray needs to assume a position projecting horizontally away from the more or less vertically carried reaching pole.

Another object of the invention is to enable the polecarried claw to support the offset weight of a shoe box and its cover, or any comparable tray-like article, with minimum tendency to distort the rim of the inverted cover or tray when thus handled by means of a reachextending implement.

A further object is to devise a manner of engagement between the box cover or tray and the claw of the implement that can be effected easily in dark places and mainly by a sense of feel Without necessity of placing the claw in too exact relation to the article that is to be handled, as well as a'manner of engagement that provides complete freedom of release ofthe traylike article by the claw when the former has been placed where desired.

A further object is to combine a claw of these new characteristics on the common end of a reaching pole with a fitting of known type for handling boxes right side up, thereby enabling a loaded box to be -placed on or removed from a stock shelf while right side up by use of the same reach-extending implement that is capable of handling boxes up side down.

A still further object of the invention is so to relate the two different kinds of fittings on the common end of a reaching pole that neither of them conceals the other from the viewpoint of a person manipulating the combined pole fittings at a considerable height above his head.

A still further object is to fashion both of the aforesaid different kinds of fittings from a single piece of bent sheet metal requiring no assemblage other than the mounting of such bent metal sheet on an end of the pole.

The foregoing and related objects of the invention will appear in greater particular from the following descrip# tion of successful embodiments kof the invention having reference to the accompanying drawings wherein:

Fig. 1 is a fragmentary perspective View of a reach extending implement embodying one Aform of the invention.

Fig. 2 is a plan view looking downward on Fig. l.

Fig. 3 shows an edgewise view of the implement of Fig. `1 supporting an inverted shoe box by means of its cover rim.

Fig. 4 shows in reduced size the development of an integral fiat vsheet of metal out of which the work engaging pole fitting of Fig. 1 can be formed.

Fig. 5 is a fragmentary perspective view similar to Fig. 1 showing a modified form of the invention.

Fig. 6 is a plan view looking downward on Fig. 5.

Fig. 7 shows the implement of Fig. 5 supporting a shoe box in a manner comparable to Fig. 3.

- Fig. `8 shows the implement of Fig. 5 differently engaged with a cover of an inverted shoe box for pulling it ofi from a high shelf.

Fig. `9 shows the implement of either Fig. 1 or Fig. 5 employed to engage and carry a shoe box cover side up.

In Figs. l4, inclusive, the top or box maneuvering end of a reach extending pole 12 carries a sheet metal fitting 14 incorporating a claw 16 at one side of thev pole and an angle bracket at the opposite side of the pole. The pole may be of any suitable length having a handle end (not shown in the drawings) that is relatively remote along the axis of the pole from its fitting equipped end.

The entire fitting shown in Fig. l can be formed from a single fiat sheet or plate of metal whose developed shape 18 may be as `shown in Fig. 4. This shape includes a mounting band 20 which is bent into a loop to straddle and wrap around an end of the pole in crosswise relation thereto in part conforming to the pole surface as best shown -in Fig. 2. When a screw 22 which extendsk through holes 23 in band 20 to receive the Vnut 24 is tightened to draw together the free ends of the mounting band 20, the latter is caused to squeeze the pole firmly and thus fasten the fitting 14 fixedly but removably thereon.

Referring again to Figs.`1 and 4, an upstanding platelike portion28'of the aforesaid angle bracket is notched to divide therefrom two lateral prongs 26 which are bent into somewhat offset relation to the remaining flat intervening margin 28. The latter is adapted to be inserted upward between the down-turned overlapping rim 30 of a shoe box cover 32 and the side wall 34 of the box as best shown in Fig. 9. Cover rim or lip 30 thus is engaged on its inner side by the plate margin 28 and on its outer side by the prongs 26 .while the bottom edge of the box when right sidequp rests on a shelf formation 36 of the angle bracket formed by bending4 over they blank ofl Fig. 4 along the broken line 38.

At the opposite side of the pole from the plate 28 and shelf 36 the upstanding strip or stiff leaf of sheet metal appearing developed as the single ended branch of a blank or plate cut to a T-shaped outline in Fig. 4 is doubled over to form a sharp return bend in the claw 16 whose shape at the mounted end of said bend affords an abutment or ilat ledge 42 standing at an angle of nearer 45 degrees than 90 degrees relative to the axis of pole 12 and whose shape at the free end of said bend forms a flat tongue 44 inclined laterally away from the pole axis and downward toward the handle end of the pole and paralleling and sufficiently spaced from ledge 42 to admit the cover rim or lip 30 freely therebetween.

Fig. 3 shows that the ledge 42 then affords a sup porting fulcrum for the outside surface of the rim 30 of the box cover when it is lodged between ledge 42 and tongue 44, whereby as is apparent from Fig. 3, the offset weight of the box and its cover will set up a clockwise swinging tendency of the cover rim 30 in the clearance space between ledge 42 and tongue 44 which swinging tendency will cause the top edge of cover rirn 39 in Fig. 3 to press toward the right against tongue 44 and the bottom of rim 3l) to press toward the left against abutment 42 causing a cling of the rim 30 to the ledge and tongue at its indicated points of pressure thereagainst because of the resulting friction which frictional cling prevents the rim 30 from slipping by gravity out of its space. The weight of the box and its cover thus becomes dependably borne by the claw 16. When the box is placed cover side down upon its shelf the binding cling of the cover rim in the claw is relieved and the claw tongue 44 can freely be lifted out of the crevice between the box side and the cover rim leaving the box in desired place on the shelf. For pulling the box oif from the shelf the claw tongue is easily reinserted over the lip of the cover rim and the pole maneuvered to yank the box off the shelf. The angle to which the pole is swung relatively to the box can determine whether or not the offset weight of the box or box cover or other tray like article will cause the cover rim to bind in the claw. If the pole i2 in Fig. 3 were to be swung clockwise it would tend to release the cover rim from the claw. For holding the box the elongate space between ledge 42 and tongue 44 of the claw will preferably be slanted as shown and not vertically disposed.

An operative equivalent of the claw ledge 42 and tongue 44 is provided by different claw formation 16 of sheet metal in Figs. 5 to 8, inclusive, wherein there is substituted for the ledge 42 a similarly disposed and similarly operative abutment 46. Here, however, this slanting abutment is provided by merely bending over a tongue-like terminal 46 of an upstanding prong 48 that is located between two higher prongs 50 whose bentover ends form hooks or tongue 52 extending parallel with abutment 46 but offset from the plane of the abutment 46 suiciently to admit to the space between hooks 52 and abutment 46 the cover rirn 30 in the manner shown in Fig. 7. In this modification of the invention the cover rim 30 catches and clings between hooks 52 and abutment 46 as it does between tongue 44 and ledge 42 in Fig. 3. But when the modified tting of Fig. 5 is applied to an inverted box for removing it from a high shelf, it is more convenient to insert the abutment prong 48 between the cover rim and the box side instead of the hooks 52, as 'is illustrated in Fig. 8.

The claw 16' comprising hooks 52 and abutment 46 may be pierced and formed from a blank of sheet metal separate from that which provides the plate 28 and prongs 26 on the opposite side of the pole. It may be fastened to the pole end by common wood screws 54 which extend therethrough and also extend through the sheet metal of the plate fitting 28 into the Wood of the pole. Both of tongues 44 and 52 have their broad- Lil) side faces doubled back and each tongue is uniformly thin in comparison with its relatively extensive breadth whereby the tongue will firmly support a substantial linear extent of the cardboard cover rim 30 without permitting tlexure thereof along its supported length.

From the viewpoint of the manipulator of pole 12, even when the pole is long and the location of thebox shelf 56 is high above ones head, there is no concealment of the claw 16 or 16 in Figs. 3, 7 and 8 by the plate 28 of the angle bracket because the latter is relatively narrow, in fact no wider than is the pole in its portion adjacent shelf 36. Likewise in Fig. 9 the claw 16 does not obscure the operators clear view of the plate 2.8 at its point of engagement with the box cover 30 because plate 28 and prongs 26 are substantially higher as well as wider than the claw 16.

Understanding that the presence of the box 34 in Figs. 3, 7 and 8 is not necessary to enable the claw to engage and support the cover and that such cover alone, or any analogous, shallow, tray-like article, can be engaged similarly and held and maneuvered by the claws, it will be recognized that the parts for the purpose herein disclosed need not be made of sheet metal, and that considerable variation in their shapes and relationship is possible within the principles of the invention, wherefore the following claims are directed to and intended to cover all fair equivalents of the exact shapes and relationships of the parts which fall within the broadest interpretation of the language of the claims,

l claim:

1. A reach extending implement for maneuvering an inverted shoe box and cover assembly in overhead locations by supporting engagement solely with the box overlapping lip of said cover, including in combination with a long reaching pole whose axis extends from a handle end thereof to a box cover reaching end thereof, a claw adapted to saddle an overlapping upstanding lip of said box cover having a butt portion detachably mounted on said maneuvering end of said pole and having a thin wide stiff leaf portion extending from said butt portion doubled over to form a sharp return bend, Said leaf portion at the mounted side of said bend standing at an acute angle of nearer 45 degrees than 90 degrees relative to said axis of said pole thereby to form a substantially fiat ledge inclined at said acute angle on which the outer surface of said cover lip can rest, and said leaf at the free side of said bend forming a flat tongue paralleling said flat ledge at a minimum spacing therefrom to be admissive to said cover lip, whereby said. tongue can be inserted between the shoe box and the box facing surface ofmsaid cover lip.

2. A reach extending implement as defined in claim 1, in which the said claw is formed from a T-shaped plate so bent that the single-ended branch of said T-shaped plate is doubled back upon itself to form the said ledge and tongue, and the double-ended branch of said T-shaped plate is wrapped at least partially around and detachably fastened to the said box cover reaching end of the said pole.

References Cited in the tile of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 658,458 Nevenzel Sept. 25, 1900 904,888 Nicholson et al Nov. 24, 1908 1,081,460 Norbo Dec. 16, 1913 1,208,624 Newman Dec. l2, 1916- l,217,680 Bagby Feb. 27, 1917v 1,350,641 Carlson Aug. 24, 1920 1,487,917 Cameron Mar. 25, 1924 1,716,232 Kantor June 4, 1929 POREGN PATENTS 24,667 Great Britain Nov.A 17, 1908 487,514 Great Britain June 22, 1938 656,295 France Jan. 2, 1929 

